Peter Garrett to release album, tour with Midnight Oil

The smart money was always on Peter Garrett returning to rock ’n’ roll after his nine-year stint in parliament.

Former minister Peter Garrett, in Sydney, has returned to his first love, with the release of a solo album pending and a tour next year with Midnight Oil. Picture: James Croucher.

The smart money was always on Peter Garrett returning to rock ’n’ roll after his nine-year stint in parliament, but the Midnight Oil singer was at a loss when he quit federal politics in 2013.

“I had no idea what I’d do next,” the former Labor minister said. “I thought I’d work on things that to me have always been the talismans of my value system.

“That would have been envir­onment, perhaps some work on indigenous issues.

“I thought the Oils might do something at some stage, but whatever that would be I thought I’d be off doing other bits and ­pieces as I went.”

This month Garrett, 63, has put his rock career back on track not once, but twice, by announcing Midnight Oil’s re-formation next year and his debut solo album, A Version of Now, which is to be released on July 15.

It is a return to the stage and recording studio that might come as a relief to the singer after a turbulent stint in politics. He has ­described parliament as “the ­valley of death”, but has no regrets about making the leap from rock to politics in 2004.

“I don’t feel as though I need to specifically explain every component of what I did,” Garrett said, “(but) I have absolutely no regrets and I’m proud of what we were able to achieve. Sometimes you were in the valley of death fighting off the Valkyries. It’s a place where your human frailties are clearly exposed as, hopefully, are your strengths.”

Garrett was demoted in 2010 by Kevin Rudd from his role as minister for environment protection, heritage and the arts over the botched home insulation prog­ram, but served under Ms Gillard as minister for school ­education, early childhood and youth.

Now he’s looking forward to resuming the position of musical activist and provocateur, a role he held as singer and songwriter in the Oils for 26 years before leaving in 2002.

His solo album, with songs such as Tall Trees and I’d Do It Again, addresses directly his flit from rock ’n’ roll to politics and back again. Garrett is about to go on the road with his solo project, while the Oils, who last toured in the 1990s, are expected to reconvene for an extensive inter­­national tour, possibly with an album in tow, next year. “I’m well and truly ready,” Garrett said. “I’m going to have some fun.”